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Teachers angling to get their students interested in science are taking advantage of a unique program that enables them to design and conduct science experiments in a zero-gravity environment. The Weightless Flights of Discovery program, which has attracted 240 teachers from all 50 states and at least 15 countries, teaches educators how to relate zero-gravity experiments to science, engineering, technology, and mathematics curriculum development.

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A group of teachers in Indiana is one of seven teams nationwide chosen to conduct experiments on a reduced-gravity training airplane, known as the Vomit Comet, through NASA's Teaching From Space program. The program allows students to develop experiments to be tested in the reduced-gravity environment and then has teachers perform the experiments on the plane. One group of students, who already tested their experiment in a normal gravity environment, will see the effects of weightlessness on a tornado vortex formation they created in school.

A group of undergraduate students at the University of California at San Diego microgravity lab is preparing for an experiment on NASA's zero-gravity training plane, known as the Vomit Comet, to test and observe how biofuel flames burn in a zero-gravity environment. The group expects the small biofuel flame to burn as a perfect sphere during the flight, rather than the uneven teardrop flame produced on Earth's surface by hot and cold air reacting to gravity around the flame. The findings could result in improved fire safety on the International Space Station, but it could also lead to increasing efficiency of biofuels in automobiles on Earth, said student project manager Sam Avery.

Teachers from a Tennessee school district will participate in NASA's Teaching from Space program in February. Part of the experience for K-12 educators is a NASA flight, where they will experience zero-gravity conditions. While in simulated flight, teachers will conduct science experiments developed by their students -- part of the program's goal of engaging students in science, technology, engineering and math lessons.

British design students have come up with a concept for a futuristic hotel that could theoretically attach to the international space station and accommodate space explorers who are able to pay for the ticket. The hotel would include everything from a robot concierge to vacuum-powered toilets and redesigned showerheads that take into account the zero-gravity environment.

With a full complement of six astronauts on board, the $100 billion International Space Station is ready to begin delivering on its promise of great scientific discoveries. "We've been building the international space station for 10 years now, and we've finally gotten to a point now where it has some incredible laboratory facilities and six people on board the station to do some science," said Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk before blasting off Wednesday aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Most crew time until now has been devoted to merely maintaining the station, leaving just 20 hours a week for scientific experiments in a zero-gravity environment. With the crew size doubled, however, that figure should more than triple to 70 hours.